


Masterpiece

by ClaraxBarton



Category: Supernatural
Genre: ? - Freeform, Dean Winchester Bears the Mark of Cain, Destiel - Freeform, Established Relationship, M/M, Mark of Cain (Supernatural), Protective Sam Winchester, Sad Sam Winchester, Season 9, established breakup, or really instead of 9.22, pre 9.22
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:33:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25709002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClaraxBarton/pseuds/ClaraxBarton
Summary: Even with stolen grace, there is only so much Castiel can do to save Dean from himself.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 2
Kudos: 23





	Masterpiece

Crowley couldn’t control Dean. 

If he had been asked, Castiel would have been able to point out the sheer ridiculousness of Crowley’s plan in the first place. 

Dean Winchester could  _ not _ be controlled. Not by Heaven, not by Hell, not even by John Winchester.

Sam, naturally, came close. Closer, at least.

Castiel even suspected that Sam would have succeeded, given more time, given more resources. 

But Dean had not only killed a Knight of Hell, the last Knight, he had slaughtered her in a way that made Sam - who had spent over one hundred and twenty years with Lucifer and Michael in the Cage - and Crowley - who was Crowley - grow pale with the retelling of it.

Which brought them to the here. And the now.

To the Men of Letters bunker and Dean Winchester in a dungeon, chained to the wall, the Mark bright and angry and fierce on his arm and a smile to match curving his lips.

“Look who decided to show up,” he drawled when Castiel walked into the room at Sam’s side.

Castiel hadn’t seen Dean in weeks, not since Metatron’s hostage exchange of himself for Gadreel, and even though Castiel had seen Dean at his very worst and his very best, his very birth and rebirth and his hundreds of deaths, he had never seen Dean quite like this.

Looking over at Sam, he had to note that the younger Winchester looked horrible. Tired, skin pale and taut, eyes shadowed and dim and lips thin. Even his hair, always possessed with a life of its own, hung limply against his sharp cheekbones.

Castiel looked back at Dean - one personal failure at a time - and studied the Mark on his forearm.

He could see it with his paltry human senses, but he could also  _ see _ it, writhing and angry and twisting through Dean’s body to coil around his heart and lungs with dark tendrils.

In Hell, in the Pit, Dean hadn’t been a demon, not yet, when he rose from the rack and took up Alistair’s blade as his apprentice. But he hadn’t been himself, either. Not human, not demon, but something awful and malignant that burned bright and dark at the same time.

This was the closest Dean had ever been to that, to his self in Hell, on Earth. 

It filled Castiel with… something. Perhaps some unnamable human emotion, perhaps something Angelic that was tempered by his own stolen grace. But it sat heavy and uncomfortable in his gut.

“Listen, Cas, you keep looking at me like that and I’m gonna have to start charging.”

Dean had fought him, when Castiel took him from the Pit. Had forced Castiel to  _ drag him _ from Hell. He had had this same expression on his face, a smirk that resembled a grimace. The only thing missing was blood smeared on his teeth and face, Alistair’s knife in his hand and a body twisted by scars and the dark coils of demonic potential.

Then again, for all of Dean Winchester’s physical scars, the ones on his psyche, on his soul, had always been the worst.

Castiel looked over at Sam again, boxed up his regrets and reminded himself that he had a mission, a  _ purpose _ .

“Tell me what you want to do,” he said.

Dean made a sound, but Castiel and Sam pretended not to hear him.

“Anything?” Sam suggested, voice a little breathless, a lot hopeless. “Can you - the Mark?”

The moment he had touched Dean, in that parking lot all those weeks ago, the moment he had  _ felt _ the pulsating darkness inside Dean, Castiel had known what it was, what Dean had done, what Dean would become. 

He had also known Sam would ask him this. Had known Dean never would.

“No,” he admitted. He wondered, not entirely idly, when his own failures would start to hurt less. 

Sam slumped, shoulders, body,  _ hair _ . He looked defeated in only the way a Winchester could - as if the entire world was crushing him down but he simply didn’t know  _ how _ to surrender, how to give up.

“I can’t remove it,” Castiel said and turned his attention back to Dean, met his hostile gaze. “But we can… I can temper the effects.” It was the best - or, at least, the easiest - way to explain his plan.

But this was Sam.

“Great - how?”

Dean was still looking at him, still had that gruesome, fearsome mask on his face.

But something flickered in his eyes. 

Knowledge.

Memory.

Then, he laughed, head thrown back, long column of his throat exposed and teeth a bright flash in the semi-darkness of the dungeon.

“Oh - oh,  _ really _ ?” Dean asked when he got control of himself. “You think that’ll work, huh?”

“It did before,” Castiel said, and Dean’s humor evaporated.

“Yeah, well, that was before,” he snapped. The sarcasm was gone, now, replaced by something genuine. Fear, or something very close to it.

“And after,” Castiel said.

“What are you guys talking about?” Sam asked.

Dean jerked at the sound of his brother’s voice, as if he’d forgotten he was there - as if he, like Castiel, had been sinking into memory and lost track of the here and now.

Dean lifted one eyebrow in a clear challenge. Licked his lips and curled them into a smile they both knew Sam hated. 

“Oh, just our buddy Cas here propositioning me. Again. Not that I can blame him - I mean, I do have one sweet ass, don’t I, Cas? Just can’t get enough, can you?”

The words were meant to hurt, to cut deeply into the both of them. Like any good knife, there were always two sharp edges to Dean’s attacks.

Dean glared at him, the look so familiar and painful that it was almost a caress.

Castiel once again forced himself to turn away and face Sam.

“I can help ground him, his soul, on this plane. It… is not something you need to be a part of.”

“Is it… sex?” Sam asked, uneasy gaze flickering between Dean and Castiel.

“Yep,” Dean answered before Castiel could, emphasizing the last letter of the word in an obscene  _ pop _ of his lips. 

Sam appeared to be re-ordering his entire perception of reality as he looked between them again, brow furrowed and lips all but vanished in a tight frown.

“Explain it,” Sam demanded.

“Well, Sammy, when a man and a woman love each other very, very much, they - or well, when a dude and a fallen angel get their dicks out and-”

“Shut up,” Sam snapped. “This… you’ve done this before?”

Castiel inclined his head in agreement. He hadn’t then - and still didn’t now - seen why Dean had been so insistent on their shared physical intimacy being kept a secret from Sam, nor why the pleasure Dean took from it evoked such shame in him. Even now, after Castiel’s stint as a human without grace, he didn’t understand it.

“When?” Sam demanded.

Dean didn’t say anything, but neither did he look at Sam or Castiel.

“When?” Sam repeated, sounding less upset and more… hollowed out. Another secret the Winchesters kept from each other. Another weakness in their already pitted and scarred armor.

“When Dean needed to remember he was no longer in Hell,” Castiel answered simply, as close to dissembling as he could get, as close to honoring Dean’s still inexplicable wishes.

Dean’s jaw ticked.

Sam’s expression cleared momentarily, then darkened.

“Did you- Did he- Dean, did he force you to do anything?”

“What?” Dean practically exploded, face scrunching up in dismay and anger. “Did  _ Cas _ force me to- Are you fucking kidding me? You really think he had to force me to let him suck my dick?”

The words had their no doubt intended effect - shutting Sam up abruptly and completely.

And while Dean wasn’t lying, precisely, it had taken more than a little coaxing on Castiel’s part to convince Dean that he was allowed to experience pleasure, was allowed to do more than wallow in memory and pain, was allowed to take what comfort and solace he could find. That Castiel, an Angel of the Lord, in a male vessel, offered it freely and with all the added benefits of grace and knowledge of the depths of Hell and Dean’s place in it, had taken even more convincing.

Sam drew in a deep breath, hugged his own torso and seemed to be lost in thought for several minutes.

“Do you think… How- It… would help?” Sam finished somewhat lamely.

Castiel cocked his head to the side and considered Dean yet again.

Even now, with his fading, stolen grace, every fiber of Castiel wished to be with Dean. Had, since the moment he gripped Dean’s shoulder in the Pit and first felt the brilliant touch of all that fire, all the  _ light _ that was Dean’s soul. 

Before, in the days after Hell, in the days of the Apocalypse, Castiel had used physical touch - one of the few pleasures Dean Winchester had ever allowed himself - and his own grace to smooth away the jagged edges of pain and remembrance, of regret and fear. 

Now, with  _ this _ grace, he doubted it would be nearly as effective. But still… still, Castiel had yet to meet an angel that didn’t yearn to hold Dean Winchester’s soul close. And this vessel, no matter how many years had passed, no matter how much Castiel lectured himself against it, would always yearn for Dean’s touch.

“I believe it is worth attempting,” Castiel decided. “Provided, of course, that Dean agrees. As always, consent is-”

It was, perhaps, the wrong time to bring that up. Beside Castiel, Sam went still, and across the room, Dean sagged in his chains.

The spectre of Kevin hung over them all, Gadreel’s presence a lingering taste, even though he was now long-gone.

“Well?” Sam asked.

Dean said nothing, looked at neither of them.

“Come on, Dean. Do you really- do you really want to be  _ this _ ?” There was such despair in Sam’s voice.

Dean frowned and turned his head away, burying his cheek against his shoulder.

“Just gonna leave me on my own, huh?” Sam huffed a bitter laugh. “After all this time, you’re just going to abandon me?”

It was a low blow, viciously calculated, perfectly aimed.

Castiel watched Dean shudder, watched him give in.

Dean lifted his head, gaze passing over Sam to land on Castiel.

There was nothing of the forced bravado of their previous encounters, all before, before Purgatory, before Dean’s attempt at a normal life, before Castiel’s utter failure to rectify any of his legion of mistakes.

“Fine,” Dean rasped. He jerked his chin up. “Go for it. Lay one on me.”

He remembered that night, that first time, when Castiel had been sure he would die at Raphael’s hand and Dean had insisted on “curing” Castiel of his virginity. When they had been forced to flee from a brothel and Dean had taken him back to the house they were squatting in, when Dean hadn’t gotten out of the Impala and neither had Castiel, and one kiss, one brush of knuckles over his jaw had led to another and another, until they were naked and tangled together in the backseat of the Impala. Another angelic conquest for Dean Winchester.

Castiel stepped forward, feeling unsteady and wondering if, perhaps, this might be his biggest mistake yet.

He had, after all, been cursed with hubris from the start, from the moment the call to arms sounded and the Host laid siege to Hell. He had sworn to himself and his father and all the stars that  _ he _ would claim Dean’s soul.

The brush of Dean’s lips against his own was both familiar and so very, very new. Years between them. Death and loss and curses and blood and monsters.

But then Dean’s lips parted, slid warm and soft against Castiel’s, and he  _ felt _ the shift of his grace, felt Dean’s soul embrace him, and, for just one moment, the world felt right.

-o-

  
  
  



End file.
